I’d just taken about two minutes straight of the damn thing when the baby doe finally realized that I was there and got up to leave.
Which was about the time that I saw the momma doe come running, looking pissed.
I quickly ducked behind a tree and watched them leave, the anxious mother turning back to shoot me a worried look every ten yards or so.
Happy that I got something to use already, I went ahead and started walking again right around the time that I nearly stepped on a fuckin’ snake.
A coral snake at that.
Pulling out my phone, I started recording, getting super close.
“Red on black, friend of Jack. Red on yellow, kill a fellow,” I recited as I picked the thing up by the tail.
I could see all the comments now.
That’s poisonous!
Eww, snakes.
Yuck, I hate snakes!
So pretty.
You’re dumb.
Oh my God. You’re brave, girl!
Grinning at the idea of what people would say, I relocated the snake somewhere safer, then continued on my hike.
I paused at one point, my eyes taking in another white-tail deer and her baby, and snapped a few photos of her.
I had to stop to pee about ten minutes later, pulling out my handy dandy Go Girl that allowed me to pee like a man.
Sadly, I couldn’t shake it to get rid of the stray pee drops like men could, so I still had to wipe.
But what I didn’t have to do was squat and pee all over the back of my hiking boots.
After putting my used toilet paper into a Ziploc, I had just started forward again when a very loud thud, followed by a scream of pain, made me go completely stiff.
I knew that sound.
I was a pro at that sound.
Why? Because I was bullied in school. I had a really good friend named Bruno that used to be bullied right along with me before I was shipped off to an all girl’s boarding school for high school.
I could distinctly remember what the sound of flesh hitting flesh sounded like because I’d watched Bruno get beat up so many freaking times.
After the first time that I’d been punched, too, Bruno had made me promise that I would never intervene again or he’d never speak to me for the rest of my life.
I valued his friendship so much that I trusted what he said to be true and instead suffered through watching him get his ass beat up time after time.
It sucked.
And each time that I heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh, it reminded me of him.
Of the guy that I’d never been able to find, even after hiring a professional to do it.
Needless to say, the sound of punches hitting skin, and cries of pain, didn’t send happy pangs through me, but dreaded ones.
Swallowing hard, I tiptoed through the trees, my eyes going everywhere all at once.
A branch snapped and slapped me in my face, causing me to curse.
Moving the branch, I glanced into a clearing and froze.
Before me sat a rather large opening in the trees. In the middle of that opening was a concrete circle with drains in it. Above the circle hung what looked to be a beam of some sort with chains dangling down. And dangling down from two chains was a man. A naked man who looked to be big, bulky, and freaked way the hell out.
Then again, I would be freaked out too when the freakin’ mayor was beating the absolute shit out of me.
Something grabbed me around the upper arm, and I gasped, spinning on my heels to see who it was, but the iron grip on my arm kept me from so much as turning an inch.
“Walk,” the voice belonging to that unyielding grip ordered.
I had no other choice but to walk or fall on my face, because he was moving.
I gasped when my foot caught on a tree limb and I started to go down, but before I could so much as begin to go horizontal, there was another arm holding me up.
“Watch your step,” he growled, dropping my other arm almost as soon as he’d touched it. “Could you not wear logical hiking shoes?”
I wore hiking boots.
Kind of.
They were sparkly Doc Martens in a shade of deep purple. They were boots. They protected my feet. And they were sparkly.
They were perfect.
This guy just didn’t realize that they were.
“I wore the shoes that I always wear,” I countered. “I’ve hiked in these so many times that they’re worn in just the way I like them.”
“Sure you have,” he grumbled.
“No, really,” I said. “I’m a videographer. I’ve filmed shit all over the world in these shoes. Hiked through the rainforest. The outback. These shoes have seen every single continent there is to see.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that, and I wasn’t sure if he saw the magical powers of the shoes, or if it was because we’d finally caught the attention of the men in the clearing.